And that’s how Smriti Mundhra got Aditya Chopra to face the camera
Sugandha Rawal (HINDUSTAN TIMES; February 22, 2023)

From bringing producer Aditya Chopra out of the shadows in front of the camera for the first time to late actor Rishi Kapoor’s last interview — the docuseries The Romantics is stirring up quite a buzz. And director Smriti Mundhra, also known as the creator of Indian Matchmaking, didn’t anticipate just “how much the series would tap into people’s sense of nostalgia and love of cinema”. Excerpts:

What was it like, bringing the vision to life and talking to so many actors, from Shah Rukh Khan to Amitabh Bachchan?
It has been a journey of over three years since we started this process and began the research — watching a lot of films, going through the whole catalogue of the production house and what was happening around the time these films were made. All this [was] because we wanted to paint a larger picture in terms of what movies tell us about the time we live in.

Tell us about putting the spotlight on the evolution of Indian cinema with the project.
One of the reasons I wanted to tell the story through the lens of Yash Chopra was because of the longevity of his career and how it started in the aftermath of the Partition. I realised how closely these elements of the political and socioeconomic climate are braided into their personal story.

This is the first time that filmmaker Aditya Chopra is facing the camera. You added the video interview footage of Aditya on the editing table and showed it to the team for his views. How relieved you were after he agreed to the cut?
Once I could show him what the series and telling of the story of his father would be with his perspective, that’s probably what convinced him, finally. Anyone who has worked in any capacity with Aditya Chopra can tell you that he holds creative integrity to the highest standard, and will move mountains to make sure that the creative integrity of whatever project he is involved with, is intact.

How did he react watching your first cut from his video interviews, which he agreed for archival use?
He kept a cool head with me. He had some time after seeing it to just absorb before I talked to him. Maybe if he was really angry, or horrified, he conveyed that to somebody else, but he didn’t convey that to me. After he saw it, the first conversation that I had with him was him saying, ‘Okay, I see what you mean’.

Can you walk us through late actor Rishi Kapoor’s final interview that also features in the docuseries?
It is one of the highlights of my career. I feel so lucky and privileged that I got that opportunity, not knowing that just a month later, we were going to lose him. He seemed his best on the day I interviewed him. He looked great, was gregarious, very chatty and charming. There was Neetu ji (Kapoor, actor and Rishi’s wife) with him, and they just had such great banter going on. I’m so glad that I got to interview him when he was in the mood to talk, especially given that it was his last interview.